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eyed urchin, just turned of sixteen, had written some copies of verses, in which discerning judges could detect the promise of future eminence. There was, indeed, as yet nothing very striking or original in the conceptions of the young poet. But he was already skilled in the art of metrical composition. His diction and his music were not those of the great old masters, but that which his ablest contemporaries were labouring to do, he already did best. His style was not richly poetical, but it was always neat, compact, and pointed. His verse wanted variety of pause, of swell, and of cadence; but it never grated on the ear by a harsh turn, or disappointed it by a feeble close. The youth was already free of the company of wits, and was greatly elated at being introduced to the author of the "Plain Dealer" and the "Country Wife."

in your first volume, or in this very paper; and the versification throughout is, I believe, such as nobody can be shocked at. The repeated permission you give me of dealing freely with you, will, I hope, excuse what I have done; for, if I have not spared you when I thought severity would do you a kindness, I have not mangled you where I thought there was no absolute need of amputation." Wycherley continued to return thanks for all this hacking and hewing, which was, indeed, of inestimable service to his compositions. But by degrees his thanks began to sound very like reproaches. In private he is said to have described Pope as a person who could not cut out a suit, but who had some skill in turning old coats. In his letter to Pope, while he acknowledged that the versification of his poems had been greatly improved, he spoke of the whole art of versifiIt is curious to trace the history of the inter- cation with scorn, and sneered at those who course which took place between Wycherley preferred sound to sense. Pope revenged himand Pope-between the representative of the self for this outbreak of spleen by return of age that was going out, and the representative post. He had in his hands a volume of Wyof the age that was coming in-between the cherley's rhymes, and he wrote to say that this friend of Rochester and Buckingham, and the volume was so full of faults that he could not friend of Lyttleton and Mansfield. At first the correct it without completely defacing the m'a"I am," he said, "equally afraid of boy was enchanted by the kindness and conde-nuscript. scension of his new friend, haunted his door, sparing you, and of offending you by too impuand followed him about like a spaniel, from dent a correction." This was more than flesh coffee-house to coffee-house. Letters full of and blood could bear: Wycherley reclaimed affection, humility, and fulsome flattery, were his papers, in a letter in which resentment interchanged between the friends. But the shows itself plainly through the thin disguise first ardour of affection could not last. Pope, of civility. Pope, glad to be rid of a troublethough at no time scrupulously delicate in his some and inglorious task, sent back the depowritings, or fastidious as to the morals of his sit; and, by way of a parting courtesy, advised associates, was shocked by the indecency of a the old man to turn his poetry into prose, and rake who, at seventy, was still the representa-assured him that the public would like his tive of the monstrous profligacy of the Restoration. As he grew older, as his mind expanded and his fame rose, he appreciated both himself and Wycherley more justly. He felt a wellfounded contempt for the old gentleman's verses, and was at no great pains to conceal his opinion. Wycherley, on the other hand, though blinded by self-love to the imperfections of what he called his poetry, could not but see that there was an immense difference between his young companion's rhymes and his own. He was divided between two feelings. He wished to have the assistance of so skilful a hand to polish his lines; and yet he shrank from the humiliation of being beholden for His bride soon after married a Captain literary assistance to a lad who might have been his grandson. Pope was willing to give Shrimpton, who thus became possessed of a assistance, but was by no means disposed to large collection of manuscripts. These were give assistance and flattery too. He took the sold to a bookseller. They were so full of trouble to retouch whole reams of feeble, stum- erasures and interlineations that no printer bling verses, and inserted many vigorous lines, could decipher them. It was necessary to call which the least skilful reader will distinguish in the aid of a professed critic; and Theobald, in an instant. But he thought that by these the editor of Shakspeare, and the hero of the services he acquired a right to express him- first Dunciad, was employed to ascertain the self in terms which would not, under ordinary true reading. In this way a volume of miscel circumstances, become a youth when address-lanies in verse and prose was got up for the ing a man of four times his age. In one letter he tells Wycherley that "the worst pieces are such as, to render them very good, would require almost the entire new writing of them." In another he gives the following account of his corrections:-"Though the whole be as short again as at first, there is not one thought mitted but what is a repetition of something

thoughts much better without his versification. Thus ended this memorable correspondence.

Wycherley lived some years after the termination of the strange friendship which we have described. The last scene of his life was perhaps, the most scandalous. Ten days before his death, at seventy-five, he married a young girl, merely in order to injure his nephew; an act which proves that neither years, nor adversity, nor what he called his philosophy, nor either of the religions which he had at different times professed, had taught him the rudiments of morality. He died in December, 1715, and lies in the vault under the church of St. Paul, in Covent-Garden.

market. The collection derives all its value from the traces of Pope's hand, which are every where discernible.

Of the moral character of Wycherley it can His hardly be necessary for us to say more. Even as a comie fame as a writer rests wholly on his comedies, and chiefly on the last two. writer, he was neither of the best school, nor

they are called forth into full energy by a virtuous passion. Her lover, while he adores her beauty, is too honest a man to abuse the confiding tenderness of a creature so charming and inexperienced. Wycherley takes this plot into his hands; and forthwith this sweet and graceful courtship becomes a licentious intrigue of the lowest and least sentimental kind, between an impudent London rake and the idiot wife of a country squire. We will not go into details. In truth, Wycherley's indecency is protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters. It is safe, be cause it is too filthy to handle, and too noisome even to approach.

highest in his school. He was in truth a worse | have been hidden, and, as it might appear, de Congreve. His chief merit, like Congreve, stroyed by an education elaborately bad. But lies in the style of his dialogue. But the wit which lights up the "Plain Dealer" and the "Country Wife" is pale and flickering, when compared with the gorgeous blaze which dazzles us almost to blindness in "Love for Love" and the "Way of the World." Like Congreve -and, indeed, even more than CongreveWycherley is ready to sacrifice dramatic propriety to the liveliness of his dialogue. The poet speaks out of the mouths of all his dunces and coxcombs, and makes them describe themselves with a good sense and acuteness which puts them on a level with the wits and heroes. We will give two instances, the first which occur to us, from the "Country Wife." There are to be found in the world fools who find the It is the same with the "Plain Dealer." How society of old friends insipid, and who are careful has Shakspeare been in "Twelfth always running after new companions. Such Night," to preserve the dignity and delicacy of a character is a fair subject for comedy. But | Viola, under her disguise! Even when wearnothing can be more absurd than to introduce ing a page's doublet and hose, she is never a man of this sort saying to his comrade-"I can deny you nothing; for though I have known thee a great while, never go if I do not love thee as well as a new acquaintance." That town wits, again, have always been rather a heartless class, is true. But none of them, we will answer for it, ever said to a young lady to whom he was making love-" We wits rail and make love often but to show our parts: as we have no affections, so we have no malice."

mixed up with any transaction which the most fastidious mind could regard as leaving a stain on her. She is employed by the Duke on an embassy of love to Olivia; but on an embassy of the most honourable kind. Wycherley borrows Viola-and Viola forthwith becomes a pander of the basest sort. But the character of Manly is the best illustration of our meaning. Molière exhibited in his misanthrope a pure and noble mind, which had been sorely Wycherley's plays are said to have been the vexed by the sight of perfidy and malevolence, produce of long and patient labour. The epi- disguised under the forms of politeness. As thet of "slow" was early given to him by Ro- every extreme naturally generates its contrary, chester, and was frequently repeated. In truth, Alceste adopts a standard of good and evil dihis mind, unless we are greatly mistaken, was rectly opposed to that of the society which surnaturally a very meager soil, and was forced rounds him. Courtesy seems to him a vice; only by great labour and outlay to bear fruit, and those stern virtues which are neglected by which, after all, was not of the highest flavour. the fops and coquettes of Paris become too He has scarcely more claim to originality than exclusively the objects of his veneration. He Terence. It is not too much to say, that there is often to blame; he is often ridiculous; but is hardly any thing of the least value in his he is always a good man; and the feeling which plays, of which the hint is not to be found else- he inspires is regret that a person so estimable where. The best scenes in the "Gentleman should be so unamiable. Wycherley borrowed Dancing-Master," were suggested by Calderon's Alceste, and turned him—we quote the words Maestro de Danzar, not by any means one of the of so lenient a critic as Mr. Leigh Hunt-into happiest comedies of the great Castilian poet." a ferocious sensualist, who believed himself The "Country Wife" is borrowed from the Ecole des Maris and the Ecole des Femmes. The groundwork of the "Plain Dealer" is taken from the Misanthrope of Molière. One whole scene is almost translated from the Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes; Fidelia is Shakspeare's Viola stolen, and marred in the stealing; and the Widow Blackacre, beyond comparison Wycherley's best comic character, is the Countess in Racine's Plaideurs, talking the jargon of English instead of that of French chicane.

The only thing original about Wycherley the only thing which he could furnish from his own mind in inexhaustible abundance-was profligacy. It is curious to observe how every thing that he touched, however pure and noble, took in an instant the colour of his own mind. Compare the Ecole des Femmes with the "Country Wife." Agnes is a simple and amiable girl, whose heart is indeed full of love, but of love sanctioned by honour, morality, and religion Her natural talents are great. They

as great a rascal as he thought everybody else." The surliness of Molière's hero is copied and caricatured. But the most nauseous libertinism and the most dastardly fraud are substituted for the purity and integrity of the original. And, to make the whole complete, Wycherley does not seem to have been aware that he was not drawing the portrait of an eminently honest man. So depraved was his moral taste, that, while he firmly believed he was producing a picture of virtue too exalted for the commerce of this world, he was really delineating the greatest rascal that is to be found, even in his own writings.

We pass a very severe censure on Wycherley, when we say that it is a relief to turn from him to Congreve. Congreve's writings, indeed, are by no means pure, nor was he, as far as we are able to judge, a warm-hearted or high-minded man. Yet, in coming to him, we feel that the worst is over-that we are one remove farther from the Restoration-that we are past the Nadir of national taste and morality.

WILLIAM CONGREVE was born in 1670,* at Bardsey, in the neighbourhood of Leeds. His father, a younger son of a very ancient Staffordshire family, had distinguished himself among the Cavaliers in the Civil War, was set down after the Restoration for the Order of the Royal Oak, and subsequently settled in Ireland, under the patronage of the Earl of Burlington.

having written a good play, and shame at having done an ungentlemanlike thing-pre tended that he had merely scribbled a few scenes for his own amusement, and affected to yield unwillingly to the importunities of those who pressed him to try his fortune on the stage. The "Old Bachelor" was seen in manuscript by Dryden; one of whose best qualities was a hearty and generous admiraCongreve passed his childhood and youth tion for the talents of others. He declared that in Ireland. He was sent to school at Kilkenny, he had never seen such a first play; and lent and thence went to the University of Dublin. his services to bring it into a form fit for reHis learning does great honour to his instruct-presentation. Nothing was wanting to the ers. From his writings it appears, not only that he was well acquainted with Latin literature, but that his knowledge of the Greek poets was such as was not, in his time, common even in a college.

success of the piece. It was so cast as to bring into play all the comic talent, and to exhibit on the boards in one view all the beauty which Drury Lane Theatre, then the only theatre in London, could assemble. The result was a complete triumph; and the author was gratified with rewards more substantial than the applauses of the pit. Montagu, then a Lord of the Treasury, immediately gave him a place, and, in a short time, added the reversion of another place of much greature value, which, however, did not become vacant till many years had elapsed.

When he had completed his academical studies, he was sent to London to study the law, and was entered of the Middle Temple. He troubled himself, however, very little about pleading or conveyancing; and gave himself up to literature and society. Two kinds of ambition early took possession of his mind, and often pulled it in opposite directions. He was conscious of great fertility of thought, and In 1694, Congreve brought out the "Doublepower of ingenious combination. His lively Dealer," a comedy in which all the powers conversation, his polished manners, and his which had produced the "Old Bachelor" show highly respectable connections had obtained themselves, matured by time and improved by for him ready access to the best company. He exercise. But the audience was shocked by longed to be a great writer. He longed to be a the characters of Maskwell and Lady Touchman of fashioa. Either object was within his wood. And, indeed, there is something strangely reach. But could he secure both? Was there revolting in the way in which a group that not something vulgar in letters-something seems to belong to the house of Laius or of inconsistent with the easy apathetic graces of a Pelops, is introduced into the midst of the man of the mode? Was it aristocratical to be Brisks, Froths, Carelesses, and Plyants. The confounded with creatures who lived in the play was unfavourably received. Yet, if the cocklofts of Grub Street, to bargain with pub-praise of distinguished men could compensate lishers, to hurry printers' devils, to squabble with managers, to be applauded or hissed by pit, boxes, and galleries? Could he forego the renown of being the first wit of his age? Could he attain that renown without sullying what he valued quite as much-his character for gentility? The history of his life is the history of a conflict between these two impulses. In his youth the desire of literary fame had the mastery; but soon the meaner ambition overpowered the higher, and obtained supreme dominion over his mind.

an author for the disapprobation of the multitude, Congreve had no reason to repine. Dryden, in one of the most ingenious, magnificent, and pathetic pieces that he ever wrote, extolled the author of the "Double-Dealer" in terms which now appear extravagantly hyperbolical. Till Congreve came forth-so ran this exquisite flattery-the superiority of the poets who preceded the civil wars was acknowledged.

"Theirs was the giant race before the flood."

Since the return of the royal house, much art and ability had been exerted, but the old masters had been still unrivalled.

"Our builders were with want of genius curst, The second temple was not like the first.'

His first work, a novel of no great value, he published under the assumed name of "Cleophil." His second was the "Old Bachelor," acted in 1693, a play inferior indeed to his other comedies, but, in its own line, inferior to them alone. The plot is equally destitute of At length a writer had arisen who, just emerg interest and of probability. The characters ing from boyhood, had surpassed the authors are either not distinguishable, or are distin- of the "Knight of the Burning Pestie," and the guished only by peculiarities of the most glar-"Silent Woman," and who had only one rival ing kind. But the dialogue is resplendent with left to contend with. wit and eloquence-which indeed are so abundant that the fools come in for an ample share -and yet preserves a certain colloquial air, a certain indescribable ease, of which Wycherley had given no example, and which Sheridan in vain attempted to imitate. The author, divided between pride and shame-pride at

Mr. Leigh Hunt says 1669. But the Old Style has misled him. VOL. IV.-57

"Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,

To Shakspeare gave as much, he could not give him. more."

Some lines near the end of the poem are sin
gularly graceful and touching, and sank deep
into the heart of Congreve.

"Already am I worn with cares and age,
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage;
But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn,
Whom I foresee to better fortune born,

2 P 2

Be kind to iny remains; and, oh, defend
Against your judgment your departed friend;
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
But guard those laurels which descend to you."

The crowd, as usual, gradually came over to the opinion of the men of note; and the "Douple-Dealer" was before long quite as much admired, though perhaps never so much liked as the "Old Bachelor."

many important points, we can never mention without respect.

His

Jeremy Collier was a clergyman of the Church of England, bred at Cambridge. talents and attainments were such as might have been expected to raise him to the highest honours of his profession. He had an extensive knowledge of books, and yet he had mingled with polite society, and is said not to In 1695 appeared "Love for Love," superior have wanted either grace or vivacity in conboth in wit and in scenic effect to either of the versation. There were few branches of litepreceding plays. It was performed at a new rature to which he had not paid some attention. theatre which Betterton and some other actors, But ecclesiastical antiquity was his favourite disgusted by the treatment which they received study. In religious opinions he belonged to in Drury Lane, just opened in a tennis-court that section of the Church of England which near Lincoln's Inn. Scarcely any comedy lies furthest from Geneva and nearest to Rome. within the memory of the oldest man had been His notions touching Episcopal government, equally successful. The actors were so elated holy orders, the efficacy of the sacraments, the that they gave Congreve a share in their authority of the Fathers, the guilt of schism, theatre, and he promised, in return, to furnish the importance of vestments, ceremonies, and them with a play every year, if his health solemn days, differed little from those which would permit. Two years passed, however, are now held by Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman. before he produced the "Mourning Bride;" a Towards the close of his life, indeed, Collier play which, paltry as it is when compared, we took some steps which brought him still nearer do not say with Lear or Macbeth, but with the to Popery-mixed water with the wine in the best dramas of Massinger and Ford, stands Eucharist, made the sign of the cross in convery high among the tragedies of the age in firmation, employed oil in the visitation of the which it was written. To find any thing so sick, and offered up prayers for the dead. His good we must go twelve years back to "Venice politics were of a piece with his divinity. He Preserved" or six years forward to the "Fair was a Tory of the highest sort, such as in the Penitent." The noble passage which Johnson, cant of that age was called a Tantivy. Not in writing and in conversation, extolled above even the tyranny of James, not even the perany other in the English drama, has suffered secution of the bishops and the spoliation of greatly in the public estimation from the ex- the universities, could shake that steady loytravagance of his praise. Had he contented alty. While the Convention was sitting, Colhimself with saying that it was finer than any lier wrote with vehemence in defence of the thing in the tragedies of Dryden, Otway, Lee, fugitive king, and was in consequence arrested. Rowe, Southern, Hughes, and Addison-than | But his dauntless spirit was not to be so tamed. any thing, in short, that had been written for He refused to take the oaths, renounced all his the stage since the time of Charles the First-preferments, and, in a succession of pamphlets he would not have been in the wrong.

The success of the "Mourning Bride" was even greater than that of "Love for Love." Congreve was now allowed to be the first tragic, as well as the first comic dramatist of his time; and all this at twenty-seven. We believe that no English writer, except Lord Byron, has, at so early an age, stood so high in the estimation of his contemporaries.

written with much violence and with some ability, attempted to excite the nation against its new masters. In 1692, he was again arrested on suspicion of having been concerned in a treasonable plot. So unbending were his principles that his friends could hardly persuade him to let them bail him; and he afterwards expressed his remorse for having been induced thus to acknowledge, by implication, At this time took place an event which de- the authority of a usurping government. He serves, in our opinion, a very different sort of was soon in trouble again. Sir John Friend notice from that which has been bestowed on and Sir William Parkins were tried and conit by Mr. Leigh Hunt. The nation had now victed of high treason for planning the murder nearly recovered from the demoralizing effect of King William. Collier administered spi of the Puritan austerity. The gloomy follies ritual consolation to them, attended them to of the reign of the Saints were but faintly re- Tyburn, and just before their execution laid membered. The evils produced by profane- his hands on their heads, and by the authority ness and debauchery were recent and glaring. which he derived from Christ, solemnly abThe court, since the Revolution, had ceased to solved them. This scene gave indescribable patronise licentiousness. Mary was strictly scandal. Tories joined with Whigs in blamrious; and the vices of the cold, stern, and ing the conduct of the daring priest. There silent William, were not obtruded on the pub-are, it was said, some acts which fall under the lic eye. Discountenanced by the government, and falling in the favour of the people, the profligacy of the Restoration still maintained its ground in some parts of society. Its strong holds were the places where men of wit and fashion congregated, and above all, the theatres. At this conjuncture arose a great reformer, whom, widely as we differ from him in

definition of treason into which a good man may, in troubled times, be led even by his virtues. It may be necessary for the protection of society to punish such a man. But even in punishing him we consider him as legally rather than morally guilty, and hope that his honest error, though it cannot be pardoned here, will not be counted to him for sin here

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after. But such was not the case of Collier's | to wink at the excesses of a body of zealous penitents. They were concerned in a plot for and able allies, who covered Roundheads and waylaying and butchering, in an hour of secu- Presbyterians with ridicule. If a Whig raised rity, one who, whether he were or were not his voice against the impiety and licentioustheir king, was at all events their fellow-crea-ness of the fashionable writers, his mouth was ture. Whether the Jacobite theory about the instantly stopped by the retort-You are one rights of governments, and the duties of sub- of those who groan at a light quotation from jects, were or were not well founded, assassi- Scripture, and raise estates out of the plunder nation must always be considered as a great of the Church,-who shudder at a double encrime. It is condemned even by the maxims tendre, and chop off the heads of kings. of worldly honour and morality. Much more Baxter, a Burnet, even a Tillotson, would have must it be an object of abhorrence to the pure done little to purify our literature. But when Spouse of Christ. The Church cannot surely, a man, fanatical in the cause of Episcopacy, without the saddest and most mournful fore- and actually under outlawry for his attachbodings, see one of her children who has been ment to hereditary right, came forward as the guilty of this great wickedness, pass into eter- champion of decency, the battle was already nity without any sign of repentance. That half won. these traitors had given any sign of repentance was not alleged. It might be that they had privately declared their contrition; and, if so, the minister of religion might be justified in privately assuring them of the Divine forgiveness. But a public remission ought to have been preceded by a public atonement. The regret of these men, if expressed at all, had been expressed in secret. The hands of Collier had been laid on them in the presence of thousands. The inference which his enemies drew from his conduct was, that he did not consider the conspiracy against the life of William as sinful. But this inference he very vehemently, and, we doubt not, very sincerely denied.

The storm raged. The bishops put forth a solemn censure of the absolution. The Attorney-General brought the matter before the Court of King's Bench. Collier had now made up his mind not to give bail for his appearance before any court which derived its authority from the usurper. He accordingly absconded, and was outlawed. He survived these events about thirty years. The prosecution was not pressed, and he was soon suffered to resume his literary pursuits in quiet. At a later period, many attempts were made to shake his perverse integrity by offers of wealth and dignity, but in vain. When he died, towards the end of the reign of George I., he was still under the ban of the law.

In 1698, Collier published his "Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage," a book which threw the whole literary world into commotion, but which is now much less read than it deserves. The faults of the work, indeed, are neither few nor small. The dissertations on the Greek and Latin Drama do not at all help the argument; and, whatever may have been thought of them by the generation which fancied that Christchurch had refuted Bentley, are such as in the present day, a scholar of very humble pretensions may venture to pronounce boyish, or rather babyish. The censures are not sufficiently discriminating. The authors whom Collier accused had been guilty of such gross sins against decency, that he was certain to weaken, instead of strengthening his case, by introducing into his charge against them any matter about which there could be the smallest dispute. He was, however, so injudicious as to place among the outrageous offences, which he justly arraigned, some things which are really quite innocent; and some slight instances of levity, which, though not perhaps strictly correct, would easily be paralleled from the works of writers who had rendered great services to morality and religion. Thus he blames Congreve, the number and gravity of whose real transgressions made it quite unnecessary to tax him with any that were not real, for using the words "martyr" and "inspiration” in a light sense: as if an archbishop might not say that a speech was inspired by claret, or that an alderman was a martyr to the gout. Sometimes, again, Collier does not sufficiently distinguish between the dramatist and the persons of the drama. Thus he blames Vanbrugh for putting into Lord Fop

We shall not be suspected of regarding either the politics or the theology of Collier with partiality; but we believe him to have been as honest and courageous a man as ever lived. We will go further, and say that, though passionate and often wrong-headed, he was a singularly fair controversialist-candid, generous, too high-spirited to take mean ad-pington's mouth some raillery on the Church vantages even in the most exciting disputes, service; though it is obvious that Vanbrugh and pure from all taint of personal malevo- could not better express reverence than by lence. It must also be admitted that his opi- making Lord Foppington express contempt. nions on ecclesiastical and political affairs, There is also throughout the “Short View" though in themselves absurd and pernicious, too strong a display of professional feeling. eminently qualified him to be the reformer of Collier is not content with claiming for his our lighter literature. The libertinism of the order an immunity from insult and indiscri press and of the stage, was, as we have said, minate scurrility; he will not allow that, in the effect of the reaction against the Puritan any case, any word or act of a divine can be strictness. Profligacy was, like the oak leaf a proper subject for ridicule. Nor does he on the twenty-ninth of May, the badge of a confine this benefit of clergy to the ministers Cavalier and a High Churchman. Decency of the Established Church; he extends the was associated with conventicles and calves' privilege to Catholic ́priests, and, what in him head. Grave prelates were too much disposed is more surprising, to Dissenting prearners.

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